Gardens of Stone --- A Cemetery Blog by Alexandra Kathryn Mosca

  The recently installed monument in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery marks the grave of legendary journalist Pete Hamill. A passage from his 2003 book 'Forever' is inscribed on the back. In 2011, Hamill was awarded the DeWitt Clinton Award for Excellence by The Green-Wood Historic Fund at its annual gala. That evening, he spoke of growing up in Brooklyn, and his earliest visits to Green-Wood.    On what would have been Hamill's 86th birthday--June 24, 2021--Pete Hamill in Park Slope Brooklyn was dedicated. You can read a lively account of that day here: The Pete Hamill Way

  After completing a book --  The Truth About Chickamauga -- which chronicles one of the  bloodiest battles of the Civil War, and in which his father, a Brigadier General, fought,  Archibald Gracie IV rewarded himself with a trip to Europe, booking his return passage on the RMS Titanic. Awakened by  “a sudden shock and noise forward on the starboard side"   just before midnight on April 14, 1912, Gracie learned that the Titanic had struck an iceberg. In the time between the collision and its sinking, Gracie helped the crew load lifeboats and made sure that a number of women traveling alone got spaces on them. Pulled beneath the water, Gracie  surfaced and spotted a lifeboat, which he managed to reach, helping several other men onto the safety of the lifeboat.  After the tragedy, Gracie began work on a book about the sinking of the Titanic. However, eight months later he became the first adult survivor to die from health issues brought about by h...

  This monument is a replica of the Trylon and Perisphere structures that served as a centerpiece of the 1939 World's Fair. Images of it were used on a wide variety of promotional materials and, in 1939, it was depicted on a United States postage stamp (swipe to see). Buried here is Reverend Dr. M. Moran Weston II, a civil rights activist and graduate of Columbia University (one of the first African Americans to do so). In addition to his work as a minister, Dr. Moran founded the Carver Federal Savings Bank, and served as a real estate developer so that he could provide opportunities such as equal education and affordable housing to African American communities. Dr. Weston died in 2002, at the age of 91.